Slang

When I first heard that a Mexican video game company, Slang, was planning to distribute a lucha libre (wrestling/fighting) game based on the Mexican sport, and it was going to be developed by a Latin American studio based in Mexico and Columbia, I became ecstatic. Growing up Latino in the United States during the 1980s wasn’t exactly a treat. As a young kid, I wanted to fit in with the kids at school, but I was made fun of because of my food, the way I spoke and the Mexican soccer jerseys I wore. I realized that Latin and Hispanic kids must find a balance of accepting a foreign culture and blending within their own. Because of the aforementioned ideas, Lucha Libre AAA Heroes del Ring is an important title to the demographic that the game will undoubtedly be marketed to.

Slang, who is partly behind Lucha Libre AAA is based out of Mexico City and has been in the video game distribution business for years in Latin America. Earlier this month, I interviewed Federico Beyer of Slang, asking his company’s motivations on releasing a core Mexican IP based on the popular lucha libre sport. He said they have a belief that only Slang and Immersion Games were able to do a lucha libre game because of their culture understanding of the sport and its fans. Lucha Libre AAA is an arcade wrestling-fighting game that has enough features to hold its targeted audience of adolescent boys and young men, but the game does have critical flaws.